Welcome to The Debrief, Box Score’s freewheeling conversation about the sports we love.
This Week’s Contributors
Michael Lee
Michael covered the NBA for more than two decades at The Washington Post, Yahoo! Sports, The Athletic, and The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. The Kansas City, Mo., native is writing a book about the Negro Leagues.
Vince Goodwill
Vince is a senior NBA writer at ESPN, providing national coverage of the league as well as in-depth reporting on the New York Knicks and Brooklyn Nets. He is also a host on SiriusXM NBA Radio.
Farrell Evans
Farrell is a Box Score co-founder, former Sports Illustrated golf writer and the executive producer of The Land We Share, a documentary about the intimate bonds between the Shinnecock Hills Golf Club and the Shinnecock Indian Nation.
The biggest story of the offseason was LeBron James coming to the Philadelphia 76ers, where he joins Joel Embiid, Tyrese Maxey and Jaylen Brown. How does this superteam compare to past NBA star-heavy teams, and will the Sixers’ whole be greater than the sum of its parts?
Vince: I think you have to start off with the hope that they’re going to be greater than the sum of their parts because they don’t naturally fit as well as LeBron, Kyrie and Kevin Love in Cleveland, or LeBron, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh in Miami. This is a different type of iteration. This is just talent coming together and coalescing and creating an opportunity. Now, can LeBron engineer while also being able to take a step back when the situation calls for it? Will LeBron try to be LeBron James the way that he’s been in every single stop in his career? That’s going to be the question. The secondary question is, how healthy is Joel Embiid going to be? We’ve asked ourselves these questions for the past three or four years, and even before that, even when he won MVP, the question was always going to be around, how healthy is Joel Embiid going to be?
So we can talk about Jaylen Brown and Tyrese Maxey and VJ Edgecombe, but if Embiid isn’t healthy and also embracing the role that’s in front of him, this can’t work. And LeBron can do all the things that he can do, but if Joel Embiid—who is the biggest linchpin defensively with the way the Eastern Conference teams play—doesn’t embrace that role, then none of the sacrifices are going to be worth a damn.
Michael: I think the only way this is going to work is if they play into the ideal scenario. So we know that Joel Embiid is injury prone, right? We know that he can’t withstand the 82-game season, and then he usually breaks down in the playoffs. Well, you know what? Joel, you can take half the year off. We want 41 games out of you. You go hard against the teams we’re going to gear up with for the postseason. In the playoffs, we’re going to ride you. But for now, we’re just going to figure it out. You don’t have to play the whole season. LeBron, you’re 42. We don’t need you to play the full season. We’re going to let you take as much time as you need to get your body right so you get there and play. We’re going to ride Maxey, Jaylen Brown and VJ Edgecombe. You three guys are going to carry us through the regular season. You’re going to carry us. We’re going to rely on you. We’re going to let you eat. We’re going to let you do whatever you need to do. And when we have the games when LeBron and Joel are playing, let them figure out what they’re going to do. Let LeBron be “Magic Malone.” I think he’s some combination of Magic Johnson and Karl Malone. He’s going to be the power forward/point guard. He’s going to be making plays, he’s going to be doing everything else.
Joel’s going to be the hub offensively when he’s out there, and everyone’s going to adjust around it. But I think the only way it’s going to work is if you know going in that you’re not going to rely on LeBron and Joel to carry you through the regular season.
And they’ll be willing to accept that as long as you know what the big picture is. I don’t think you can have all five of those guys out there on the floor for the whole season. I think they have the chance to work, but the other guys have to be willing to accept those nights when they’re not going to be the guy that everybody relies on. I think that going into this season, LeBron is already going to make sure it’s Tyrese Maxey’s team. I don’t know if Joel’s really going to be cool with that, but he’ll be cool with it if you sell him that we’ll ride you in the games that you do play. And I think that’s the only way this can work because it’s too many cooks.
Farrell: You guys are talking about the basketball part of it, and I think LeBron sucks up so much air that the sideshow, the commute from New York, his ego, him wanting to be point forward, controlling the ball, his legacy—“I’m the greatest. I’m LeBron James”—his commercials, the media attention. So you got the whole sideshow, and then you got the city of Philadelphia. I don’t think he’s played in a hard-nosed, blue-collar sports town like Philadelphia. And he’s got his age, and he’s got 11 other guys who want touches and who want to score and who want to be leaders.
So I think LeBron is the X factor. I don’t see LeBron coming off the bench being a supportive guy.
How does the Philadelphia decision affect LeBron’s legacy? Does it strengthen it by showing he can still build a contender, or does it feel like late-career ring chasing?
Michael: He’s definitely late-career ring chasing, and that’s fine. I mean, he’s earned the right to be in his position to go chase some rings because this is the end of his career and he wants to play for something. So I’m like, “Go ahead. If this is the way you think you can go ahead and get those championship rings, go ahead.” But know that you will be docked because your team is so loaded, and if they win, it won’t be because of you. You know what I’m saying? As the frontline guy, you’ll be the guy that brings the culture or whatever, the championship experience, but you won’t be the Finals MVP scoring 30 points a game like you did in Cleveland or Miami or anything like that. You’re going to be the guy that’s going to be setting up everybody. And if he’s cool with that and he just wants to get a couple of rings on the shelf, that’s fine.
I don’t think it’s going to hurt his legacy at all. I think his legacy’s already cemented. I think a lot of times people get caught up in the whole GOAT debate. I think that debate is over. It’s been over for a long time. It’s just something that he’s carrying on because it’s something that keeps him motivated. “If I’m the all-time leading scorer, if I’m top three in assists, or if I’m top in rebounding.” He is the statistical GOAT. No one else can touch him statistically. He’s got that wrapped up. He’s not going to catch Jordan in terms of all the other things. And that’s how I feel. And I don’t really think it’s really worth discussing because I think that’s already over.
But in terms of him chasing rings, I’m all for it. He’s 42 years old. He’s done some wonders for the league. He’s been a great role model. If he wants to go out and just collect a couple of rings, go for it. I don’t necessarily think that’s going to happen, but I do not fault him for saying, “I’m going to go to the best place so I can get a couple more championships,” just because he earned the right to play for something important. He shouldn’t just go somewhere and just finish out his career as some sad dude who had nothing to play for. I want him to play in pressure situations. It’ll be good for the game.
Vince: When we say legacy, we mean reputation. Legacy is what you leave behind. Reputation is what we think of you right now. I think, in terms of his legacy, his legacy is about free agency. His legacy is about, for lack of a better phrase, ring chasing and figuring out the best situation and forcing the team’s hand to do everything that you want the team to do. Is that the case in Philadelphia? Is he the guy there that is forcing everything that’s changing, or did he see a situation that’s advantageous for him with Tyrese Maxey there, with Embiid there, and then they go and get Jaylen Brown? How much did that influence his decision?
So when you look at him trying to get another ring, I don’t know how that changes anybody’s minds. At this stage of our lives, whatever age you are, unless you are 22 and you have not seen another great NBA player at the highest of levels, your GOAT debate was largely settled when LeBron’s failures came about.
There was no way that LeBron was going to be catching Michael Jordan or, in some people’s minds, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, or in some people’s minds, Magic Johnson. And in a lot of other crazy people’s minds, maybe he wasn’t going to catch Kobe Bryant. That’s a discussion for another day, or a never day.
I think this thing could be just a great experience. You’re going to play in Philadelphia with this stacked team after all those years in LA where you didn’t play for anything. Once they traded for Luka Doncic, it was very clear that they were transitioning to a different sort of basketball, and he wasn’t going to fit there. He wasn’t going to be part of long-term plans. But how can LeBron James at 41 years old be part of anybody’s long-term plans? That’s just not realistic.
So I’m with Mike as far as him having the right to do all of this. He’s still a highly effective basketball player for his age. He’s going to be 42 in late December, but I don’t think it’s going to change anybody’s minds. He can win two rings in the next two years, and anybody that’s in the Michael Jordan is the GOAT camp, they’re going to stick there because they’re going to have a reason to continue to have Michael Jordan there and say that LeBron didn’t do anything at the peak of his powers to catch him.
Farrell: For me, I think it cements his legacy as a player who has jumped around and tried to cherry-pick players and want to be on super teams. And regardless of whether or not they win championships or not, to me, that is his legacy. If you think about the great players in our game, they played with one or two teams their entire career. Magic was a Laker. Jordan was a Bull. Kobe was a Laker. Bill Russell was a Celtic. Larry Bird was a Celtic. What is LeBron James? LeBron has played with the Cavs twice, played with the Heat, played with the Lakers. Now he’s on his fourth team. So to me, it just cements the trend that we’ve seen throughout his career.
I like LeBron. I think he’s a great human being. I like what he’s done with the people that he’s put around him, bringing people up from the community. I love all that stuff, but the whining, the forcing his son on the team, there’s no integrity in that for me. So Philadelphia cements his legacy as a guy who jumps around and cherry-picks. If Joel Embiid was not on this team, Maxey wasn’t on this team, Jaylen Brown was not on this team, he’s not going to Philadelphia. We know that. So he’s not a builder. He’s a guy that wants to surround himself with super players.
Despite a historically dominant title run, only 1 out of 30 NBA general managers think the New York Knicks will repeat as NBA champions, and Las Vegas oddsmakers have the San Antonio Spurs and the Oklahoma City Thunder as clear favorites over the Knicks. What accounts for this skepticism, and what do you think of the Knicks’ chances to repeat?
Michael: It’s not necessarily skepticism about the Knicks. I think it’s skepticism about just the way the NBA is. We don’t have a dominant team anymore, and we can’t look at the Knicks and think that they are going to be a dominant team because they had a great postseason run, but they weren’t world beaters in the regular season. They weren’t out here just destroying everybody.
We haven’t had a repeat champion since the Warriors in 2017 and 2018. It’s just been a team gets its ring and it moves on. A lot of times there was a stretch where the defending champions weren’t even making it past the second round. So just because you won a championship doesn’t mean everyone says you’re the favorite going in. I mean, I thought Denver was going to have a nice run. They had just one year. We thought Oklahoma City was going to go back to back because they looked so dominant last year. They got knocked out by the Spurs.
So I think the state of the league right now is what the NBA wanted. The second apron is doing wonders in terms of keeping teams from holding on to players. You can see right now it’s already creating chemistry issues with the Knicks because they’re trying to keep KAT from signing his extension or getting the money that he feels he deserves. He wants his full money. He wants security, and if they’re not going to give it to him, that’s going to create some issues for this team.
They’ve just come off a championship. Everyone’s going to feel entitled. Everyone’s going to feel like they’re the man. Are they going to be willing to do what they did last year to win a ring? You make those sacrifices for that ring, you get it, and then all of a sudden you’re the king of New York. You celebrate it everywhere you go. So I think they’re going to be hung over all year. So I’m not saying they’re going to be bad. I think they’re still going to be very good, but not repeating is rooted in the fact that history has proven that there is no dominant team, and also we can already see the problems with that team that could unfold this year.
Farrell: Living in New York and going through this whole summer basically, spring and summer with them, it was something that’s like a once-in-a-lifetime thing. Everything had to just go perfectly. The shot and OG Anunoby catching the rebound and nobody’s there to block him out. Stuff like that doesn’t happen. And they’re so overly indexed on Jalen Brunson, who is a poor defender, but a one-of-a-kind scorer.
So is Jalen going to play 82 games and going to go through the NBA long playoffs again with that same kind of intensity and energy? Plus, the people that they’ve lost like Mitchell Robinson. I just don’t see it. They aren’t built that way. The Thunder and the Spurs are built that way, where you have that depth and you have those kinds of players. But the Knicks are Jalen and then a bunch of role players. That’s unfair probably, but that’s how it felt watching these playoffs.
Vince: I think to Mike’s point, the second apron and the way that championship teams are no longer as sustainable, not the way that they’re necessarily built when they win, but just there’s not a huge gulf between a champion and the next best team. Even think of the Steph Curry and Kevin Durant Golden State Warriors. We thought they were going to run the league for four or five years, and by year two of that, they were in a seven-game slugfest against the Houston Rockets in the Western Conference Finals, where they needed everything to get back to the NBA Finals, let alone win. I just think it’s the nature of basketball. You have a very short window to maximize whatever it is that you got going on. And for the Knicks, it’s important to remember, they weren’t a one or a two seed last year. They were a three seed in the Eastern Conference. Very rarely do three seeds win NBA titles. It is almost an anomaly when something like that happens.
One of two things happens. You win a championship a little bit unexpectedly. You run roughshod through the league the next year because you have the sweat equity, this confidence, this arrogance. Or because everybody is chasing you and you aren’t that much better than everybody else, you fall back to the pack a little bit and you wind up having to pull something from you to even get back to the conference finals. To Mike’s point, only the Oklahoma City Thunder last year got out of the second round. So winning the championship, competing for a championship, as easy as it was for the Knicks, as easy as it was for the Denver Nuggets, it’s hard to get back to that stage because the games that are played, the attention that’s on you, so many things have to go right.
And for the Knicks, you can’t have two guys with their contract situations up in the air, and then have the backdrop of Madison Square Garden, and then have the backdrop of being a defending champion, and then have the backdrop of Indiana being better, Philly being better, Detroit being better, Miami being better. There’s so many different potholes that can catch the Knicks that are outside of their own building, let alone the things that happen inside of their own building. So not just “the disease of me,” but anybody can catch them. You can call it parity or lack of greatness. There are a whole bunch of good and not enough great, but I think that’s the NBA that we’re in now.
Michael: And one thing that happened last year too, we can’t forget, like you mentioned how lucky they were everything broke from. Detroit was the number one seed, and they got wiped out by Cleveland. And then the number two seed was Boston. They overachieved all year, and they got wiped out by Philly. So the Knicks were a three seed, but they never had to deal with being on the road in any playoff series in the East. And then they got their confidence all the way up. They get the Spurs, the team that probably didn’t expect to get to the Finals, their first playoff run together. And then you had De’Aaron Fox just handing them the championship with his awful performance in that series.
So they were very fortunate to get that ring. And the fact that they already have some issues brewing before the season starts, they’re starting off in a tough spot because the East has gotten stronger, and we do have another significant move that happened this offseason too that nobody’s really talking about, and that’s Giannis going to Miami.
There are a lot of teams that were below them that have gotten a lot better, and so it’s going to be a lot harder to just go out there and do what they did last year. It won’t be set up that same way.
The West looks like a two-horse race between the San Antonio Spurs and the Oklahoma City Thunder. Which team has the edge, and is there a dark horse in the West that people should be paying more attention to?
Vince: It is tough between the Spurs and the Thunder because those teams are almost perfectly built like each other, just different variations of what their superpowers are, but length on the wing, length at the rim, youth, shooting. Oklahoma City played an entire season with their second-best player playing less than half the year in Jalen Williams. So him coming back. You still got Shai Gilgeous-Alexander. Chet Holmgren, maybe there’s some voodoo that Victor Wembanyama has over him, but if they lessen the dependency on him, then Victor can’t turn him into a pumpkin in May and June this year.
If Jalen Williams is there and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander continues to play like this MVP, it feels like those two teams are far and away better than everybody else.
Maybe Minnesota because of the way that that team changed its chemistry. But we’ve yet to see LaMelo Ball play serious basketball, high-stakes basketball, where he can’t just be throwing a ball between his legs over the backboard and it’s a McDonald’s commercial. You’ve got to see guys play basketball on a serious level every single night. Say what you want about Anthony Edwards and a lot of things that are around him. We’ve never thought that he does not take basketball seriously. He shows that he is serious about the game. Is this going to be the year where there’s an opening? You don’t know. Is this going to be a year where San Antonio, the atrophy from last year catches them? They played deep into the season and came away with a heartbreak. The miles still count. Those miles on that body still count whether you come away with a ring or not. Same thing for Oklahoma City. This is year three of a very long run that we’re not sure how that affects NBA teams anymore because the teams don’t stay at the top long anymore.
So Oklahoma City and San Antonio are there. I think Minnesota’s probably the next best team. I don’t know if I believe in Denver. I don’t know if I believe in the Lakers or Houston. I just feel like if there’s a middle class in the Western Conference, there’s a bunch of teams that have got a bunch of hope, pockets full of hope maybe.
Michael: I concur with everything that’s been said. The one thing, and why I sort of give the edge to OKC going into the season, is that I still think that San Antonio has to come to terms with something. Dylan Harper is their second-best player, and on some nights he’s going to be the best player on the court. And they have to acknowledge that in a way that satisfies him and everybody else just buys in. Because what I saw from him in the playoffs last year was just a rookie who was not afraid of the stage of the moment. He wanted it, and he was getting buckets in pressure situations, and he was doing everything and beyond what a rookie should be asked of at that moment. But he also was a number two pick in the draft, and he’s looking at guys like Cooper Flagg and all these other guys getting their opportunities to run their own teams.
And he’s looking over and like, “I’m better than them. I need my time. I need this to be my team.” And they have to figure out a way to make sure that he’s on the floor and that he’s getting his because he is that level of talent. He is an elite-level talented player. And if they go into this thinking it’s going to be like last year and he’s just going to come off the bench and be happy and do whatever, that’s not going to ride. He’s going to have to be somebody who comes in there and has fed the ball. Fox has got to take a backseat. Castle might have to take a backseat too, because I just think that when you have a special talent like that, you can’t hold them back, you can’t restrict them because he’s going to be frustrated. And I just think that’s an issue that they have to figure out.
And if they do, I think that they’re going to just really take off. But if they don’t, that has the potential to be a trouble spot for them.
But I think the thing about Oklahoma City that works out is that everybody knows their slot. They know what they’re supposed to do out there on the court. And you can see when they got the postgame interviews and everybody brings everybody in, they are just a family. They love each other, they root for each other, they do all this stuff, they hang out. There ain’t nothing else to do in Oklahoma. So that chemistry there is something that I think is just the strongest thing I’ve seen in a league.
San Antonio can get it right and Harper can make that leap that I know he’s capable of. I believe he’s special.
Vince: And if he doesn’t make the leap, then we’re going to find out from his daddy on Twitter.
Which player has the most to prove this season, and why?
Vince: Ja Morant would be an easy answer just because we kind of wrote him off to a large degree. His game hasn’t progressed. The last time we saw him, he’s playing with guns or telling us that he was playing with guns and all that, the dumbest stuff possible. The dumbest thing that you can get in trouble for is when you tell on yourself. I will stand on that being the absolute GED dumbest thing that you could do and showing us how stupid your decision-making can be. But from a standpoint of having a lot to prove on the floor, Jaylen Brown, to a lot of people’s eyes, had an MVP-type season for the Boston Celtics last year, and their response was, “We don’t want you.” There is no stronger feeling in life than to not be wanted and to have to show somebody. That’s relationships, that’s life, that’s sports, whatever it is.
Jaylen Brown was offered to every team east and west, they traded him to the next closest city to Boston. In other words, not only do we not want you, we don’t fear you. And whether they knew LeBron James was coming or not, they looked at that Philadelphia 76ers roster and said, “Even though they beat us in the playoff series, even though we are shipping you a top-10 guy, we don’t fear you in a seven-game playoff series.” That is an indictment of what they think about Jaylen. And whether he has an MVP or not, I don’t know if it’s necessarily possible, but as far as having something to prove, having that scorn, there’s nobody that has more scorn in his blood than Jaylen Brown this year. Not even close.
Michael: I agree. It’s all about Jaylen Brown. I mean, to have the season that he had and then to end the season the way he did saying it was the best season he ever had, which raised a lot of eyebrows because it’s like, hold up, you won a championship and you got knocked out in the first round and that’s the best season you had? And I totally was with him. I agree with him saying it. I agree with him being honest and mentioning that, hey, I was the man and I loved it. I love being the man. I love leading the team to overachieve and do more than what anybody anticipated. I love the fact that everybody got to see that I really was that guy, even though they kept saying the other guy was the guy. And I think that to go through that and then get traded, but then go to a situation where you don’t know what they expect of you.
Philly’s not coming in saying, “We got Jaylen Brown. He’s going to be our guy. He’s going to lead us to the top.” They didn’t say that. And there never was a moment where Jaylen Brown was brought into Philly and told that he’s going to be the guy. And so I think you talk about the chip he has on his shoulder coming from Boston, he got one in Philly because he was like, “I know y’all traded for me. I know y’all like me and all, but y’all going to give me that extension? Are y’all going to pay me? Are you going to pay me like the man? Are you going to treat me like the man?” So he’s got something to prove to Philly too. So he’s got two franchises that he’s got to really step up for. And so I think he’s got a lot of pressure on him because it’s like, is he going to buy in?
Is he going to accept taking a lesser role? Is he going to be the third option, the fourth option, or is he going to demand being the first option? He was asked on media day, whose team is it? And he “next-questioned” it. So I don’t know if that meant he wants to say, “Yeah, I’m the man,” or he wanted to say something else, but either way, he’s got something to prove to everybody because in his mind, that question shouldn’t be asked because he just proved what he could do in Boston. Before LeBron came, Jaylen was the only guy that had a Finals MVP, so, “Why should we have to worry about who the man is here? I’m 12 years younger than LeBron. I kick Joel Embiid’s butt in the playoffs every year except for this last time. Why are we asking that question?”
Farrell: I agree that it’s Jaylen, but I feel sorry for him though, because in his mind he was just as elite as Jayson Tatum, but he didn’t get that anointing. In every room that he goes in, he’s the smartest guy in his mind. So you come to Philadelphia where on every measure, LeBron is more financially successful. Philanthropically, he’s bigger than you. In terms of what people think of as basketball knowledge, LeBron is more elite than anybody. So you got a guy who’s in a room every day with LeBron. With that Celtics crew, Jayson Tatum wasn’t walking around like, “I’m the smartest guy in the room.” He’s in a room now with LeBron, and LeBron is the man in whatever room he goes into. He’s got to be around Joel Embiid, who thinks that he’s like a jump shooter.
Tyrese is a guy who can do anything with the ball. It’s going to be tough for him because they’re going to struggle. They’re going to lose some games like everybody else. And does he say the wrong thing in the media and get in the crosshairs with LeBron? Because LeBron is very thin-skinned, and LeBron is going to take his two or three, four, five or 20 games off that he takes over the course of the season, and Embiid is not going to stay healthy. There is zero chance he’s going to play 82 games.
Michael: And he shouldn’t try to.
Farrell: That’s another story, but I think it’s up to him to decide, is he going to play ball with everybody on that team?
Prediction time: Who will make the NBA Finals from each conference, and who do you think will win?
Farrell: Minnesota and Cleveland. And Minnesota wins.
Michael: Vince, you look like your face is about to fall off.
Vince: The one team that I’m not picking to go to the Finals is Cleveland.
Michael: Same here. Same here.
Vince: There are a bunch of teams that can go to the NBA Finals from the Eastern Conference. Not one of them is the Cleveland Cavaliers. I think there are a bunch of great, flawed teams in the East, teams that have great potential but are also flawed. I’m going to close my eyes and say, “Eeny, meeny, miny, moe.” It is not going to be the New York Knicks. So I’ll say Philly and Oklahoma City, and Oklahoma City’s going to go back up top.
Michael: I like Oklahoma City going in, but if the Spurs let Harper cook, I think the Spurs can get there and get it done. In the East, there are so many teams that you can go with, but I’m going to just go out on a limb here and ask this question: How in the world did a player as good as Giannis switch teams and nobody cares? This guy is a two-time MVP, Defensive Player of the Year, always in the discussion as one of the top two or three players in the league. He moves teams and is now playing in the Heat culture, and they can’t get mentioned. I’m just going to go out on a limb. I know I’m crazy. I’m going to go with the Heat because they haven’t had a player like this in their franchise for a long time.
They had Jimmy Butler, and they went to the Finals twice. Is Giannis not better than Jimmy? I mean, you brought Giannis in to basically be what Jimmy was, and I mean, they’re going to have something they have to address. I think they can do some things at the deadline probably to get some shooters in there who can actually knock down shots. I mean, Klay Thompson’s a guy in theory who’s supposed to do that, but he’s also up in age. But I just think that defensively, Giannis and Bam could just be dynamic.
I just can’t believe a guy who was as accomplished as Giannis is being so ignored going into a season and knowing that he’s not coming off any sort of major health issue. I mean, I know he’s had the past couple years he’s been dinged up, and the Bucks haven’t really played at the level we’re used to. But I just think you talk about somebody with something to prove, we talk about Jaylen Brown. I think Giannis is going to be fired up to really show everybody or try to remind everybody that, “Hey man, why y’all talking about this kid in San Antonio or Luka and Jaylen Brown? Come on, man. I’m Giannis. I am Giannis. Don’t forget.” And I think it’d be fun if we had a Giannis and Wemby Finals. It’d be great for the international markets too.
Farrell: I’m going to revise my pick. I like San Antonio, and I do like Miami. I do like Miami for the reasons that you said so, but it’s hard to go against San Antonio. That Spurs team really should have beat the Knicks.
Michael: They should have smoked them.
Farrell: You guys cover the NBA a lot closer than I do, but just watching that series and watching those games where they were up and they still lost. You were about to say something, Vince?
Vince: Just that youth is stupid, and stupid don’t win. That’s all.
Michael: Yeah, they made young mistakes. They played like a young team. I mean, they went further than you would’ve expected in their first run together. It went beyond expectations of what anybody thought. And I was like, “Man, if Wemby’s ready to go there now, I’m ready to go with him. Take me there.” But they got to the Finals and some of his flaws were exposed and some of the things that he needs to work on in his game, and also just as his growth as a person, he’s got to get better. He got to be smarter. He can’t throw his elbows all over the place when he gets mad. He’s got to keep it together. He can’t get suspended or be on the verge of suspensions. He can’t play scared in the playoffs. He’s got to go out there and be aggressive, but not stupid. And like you said, stupid doesn’t win.
Wemby made some stupid decisions in that series or that postseason run that hurt his team. But yeah, I think that he learned from it. I think he’s going to be fired up. But who are you picking again, Farrell?
Farrell: San Antonio and the Heat. You won me over, but who can beat San Antonio?
Michael: OKC can beat them. They have the talent. They have the coaching staff. And Jalen Williams, somebody who was out last year with injury, I think that was an overlooked part of their story. And also Ajay Mitchell was hurt too. I mean, there were a lot of guys that just weren’t around who could come in and really elevate them. But I don’t know. I’m just somebody who is intrigued by Wemby and would like to see him really ascend, just because we’ve never seen anybody like that, the 7-5 guy, 7-6, however tall he is. He keeps growing, they keep lying. Whatever he’s got, he just seemed to have a certain level of maturity that I like, and he just seemed to carry himself in a way that I’m with him. Don’t take the gambling money. I’m with you. I want to see somebody just go out there and just reach the peak of their potential.
We hype up these players so much and say that they’re going to be the next whatever. I’d like to see that prophecy fulfilled, and I hope he’s the guy.
The season starts Tuesday night with three games: Celtics-Pistons, Knicks-Sixers and Spurs-Thunder. What’s the storyline you’re the most invested in this season?
Michael: I live in Philadelphia, so without a doubt, I’m watching that closely because there’s so many things that are fascinating about that team, a lot we’ve already addressed, but so many things that could go sideways. It could be a spectacular show, it could be a spectacular failure. And I think I just want to see how it plays out. This is LeBron’s possible last dance. I don’t know. He might still have 10 more years in him.
He’s gone a lot longer than anybody would’ve expected or anticipated. He could morph into a different version of himself, and this could be the first stage of that where he’s playing at a different level.
We talk about rookies coming into the league and just really being impressive. Edgecombe was just phenomenal in the playoffs. He had some games there against Boston on the road in a closeout where I’m like, “Hold up, this dude shouldn’t be this good right now.” And I was thinking the same thing about him.
And so I think he has a potential to be great and really learn from a lot of these guys. If he can soak it all in, he can really use this as a building year just from what his potential’s going to be. I think he could really explode from all he picks up from Brown and from LeBron and just Embiid, he’s somebody that constantly breaks down. I always said he gets hit with a bad luck stick in the playoffs every year. Some fluke accident always happens. And if he can hold up and actually do what he has expected to do in Philadelphia for a long time, so that team is just by far, there’s just so much going on with them that you’re going to care one way or another.
They’re probably the only team out there that everybody’s got some interest in seeing them either fail or succeed. Either you hate LeBron or you love him or you just want to see a super team. We haven’t really seen that very much. I mean, the fact that LeBron’s on a minimum contract and everything for this all to work out, it’s just super-intriguing. So definitely my eyes are all over Philly.
Vince: The Eastern Conference as a whole, just the fact for the past two or three decades, the compelling stories have been in the West. In the Eastern Conference, you can have six teams that can make a case to win 50 games, and it’ll make for compelling fodder: Who’s going to jump out ahead? Who’s going to make the panic move because they’ve underachieved? You don’t know. So just in general, the Eastern Conference, I think, is the most compelling thing for me, regional bias aside.
Farrell: For me, it’s the Knicks because that was such a universally loved story, and galvanizing. People on the left, the right, all different races kind of came together around the Knicks.
Vince: Man, that sounded like some East Coast nonsense. There was no galvanizing thing, left, right, east, west. That’s some Walt Disney stuff there. As many people hated the Knicks as people liked them. It’s just that they were louder. That’s all.
Farrell: Symbolic of democracy, the Statue of Liberty [laughs], it all came around the New York Knicks and the people who got it. That’s why everybody came around the Knicks, and the people in the streets…
Michael: This sounds like a New Yorker. This is total New York bias because outside of New York, nobody cared.
Farrell: The Knicks are the greatest story in the NBA right now. And if the Knicks play well, the Knicks will be the story because the NBA wants the Knicks to be. You got the Garden, you got LeBron a couple hours away, and that used to be the NBA.
Michael: They only have three championships now.
Vince: They’re not the Yankees. Let’s end it here. 🏀
